The Health Minister has defended the shutdown of golf clubs across the country by saying the sport “rightly or wrongly is not being deemed an essential service.”

Golf was one of the first sports to return after the original lockdown was lifted, with officials agreeing that the sport is socially distanced by definition.

Last night however, the Golfing Union of Ireland ‘very regrettably’ confirmed that the sport would not be given the same status this time around - even though sports like tennis expect to continue.

On The Pat Kenny Show this morning, the Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said people can look at any of the Level Five restrictions and ask, “how come we can do this but not that?”

“People can look at any of these and say, well I can go to a wedding but I can’t play golf. I can walk down the street with my granny but I can’t sit in the garden with her. 17-year-olds are allowed train but 19-year-olds are not allowed train,” he said.

Rory McIlroy on the 6th tee during the first round of The Northern Trust golf tournament in Jersey City New Jersey, 08-08-2019. Image: Rich Graessle/Icon SMI via ZUMA Press

He said the easy response would be to simply shut everything down like the first lockdown.

“Then everyone would say OK, that is consistent because there is literally nothing allowed,” he said.

“Instead, what we are doing is saying, we have got to supress the virus, we are moving to Level Five but there are some things which need to stay open.

“Like adult disability services, like hospitals, like training for school-age children and like the schools themselves.

“The moment we begin to say, 'it is like the last time except for the following things,' people can say, ‘but hang on, if you are allowing that, then allow this.’

“Why not open the gyms? Why not open that? Why not have club championships? Because essentially what we are doing is saying, ‘go home and stay within 5km of your house.’”

Confusion

He suggested allowing golf to continue while other amateur sports are banned would have caused further confusion for people.

“Should we start picking out individual sports and say you can do this but you can’t do that?” he asked.

“You can play nine holes but you can’t play 18 holes. You can go round in foursomes; no actually you can go round in twosomes; well actually you can’t do that, you know what you can do, you can play the first five holes but you have to go on your own.

“That is just not the world we are in. We are in Level Five and the very clear message for the next six weeks is we have to go home.

“We have made a few exceptions to that for a variety of reasons including mental health and physical health and essential services. We are keeping all of the schools open, all of the colleges open and manufacturing and construction open.

“So, we have a choice. We can either accept that there are some things that we keep open to facilitate the economy and health services and education and so forth or we just close everything.

“I hope your listeners understand that the right thing to do is a core message that says we need to stay at home but we are keeping these essential services open and golf, rightly or wrongly, is not being deemed an essential service.”

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